About
Urszula Kasperek
Founder of Latitude Policy. A decade of building things that did not previously exist — inside government, philanthropy-funded coalitions, and international organizations.
Urszula has spent her career where policy is actually made: drafting the legislation, briefing the ministers, and holding the coalitions together. In the Scottish Government, she co-led the Heat Networks (Scotland) Act 2021 from consultation and drafting through to unanimous parliamentary passage, negotiating directly with utilities, local authorities, and the UK Government along the way.
She then moved to the international stage. At Climate Group, she led global diplomacy for the Under2 Coalition, represented local and regional governments at pre-COP ministerial negotiations, and built a policy intelligence program that lifted government officials’ engagement in multilateral processes by 80%. At C40 Cities, she led national government engagement in support of CHAMP, the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships — an independent, country-led coalition of 77 national governments — advising principals and coordinating meetings between subnational leaders and their national-government counterparts, as well as international figures such as the UN Secretary-General.
Today, through Latitude Policy, she brings that experience directly to governments, NGOs, philanthropy, and the UN system — alongside a public research series on whether powerful AI accelerates or undermines decarbonization, and at what infrastructure, energy, and water cost.
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2026 —
Latitude Policy & independent research
Advisory services for governments, NGOs, philanthropy, and the UN system; publishing a research series on AI, energy, and climate policy, tested with policy, philanthropy, and industry counterparts including at Climate Week NYC.
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2024 — 2026
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group
Head of CHAMP National Engagement, then Head of Intergovernmental Relations and Policy — advising the country-led CHAMP coalition from its C40/GCoM support unit on engagement with 77 national governments, supporting the drafting of the coalition's governance structure signed at COP30, and managing pooled philanthropic funding including from Bloomberg Philanthropies.
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2022 — 2024
Climate Group
Global Diplomacy Manager, then Senior Manager for International Advocacy — leading the LGMA Constituency's COP28 joint positions (adopted into the UNFCCC Global Stocktake synthesis report), diplomatic missions to Brazil and South Korea, and coalition building across ICLEI, C40, and the Global Covenant of Mayors.
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2017 — 2022
The Scottish Government
Senior Policy Advisor, then Team Leader for EU Exit and Trade — co-leading the Heat Networks (Scotland) Act 2021 to unanimous passage, advising ministers through Brexit's impact on the food and drink sector, and directing Scotland's bilateral clean energy partnership with Denmark to an MoU signed at COP26.
How I work
Rigor you can act on
Evidence against incentives
Claims are assessed by mapping which findings serve whose interests — and looking for where the evidence runs contrary to the incentives of those producing it. Priors and interests are stated up front; where the evidence doesn't settle the question, that is reported rather than concluded past.
Decision-ready, always
The core work product is the memo a principal can act on: what is happening, what it means for you, and what to do next — the same standard used for ministers, special envoys, and parliamentary committees.
Built from zero
A landmark act with no precedent, engagement functions for 77 governments where none existed, ministerial relationships opened from a standing start. Under-resourced institutions don't need perfect information to move — they need judgment about where effort buys the most.
Writing
On the collision course
Urszula writes a research series on powerful AI: what it may make possible, what it costs, and who is positioned to benefit before they are subjected to those costs — covering data center demand, clean power procurement, the credibility of AI-for-climate claims, and AI’s near-invisibility in national climate plans.
Read on Substack →Beyond the desk
Position & bearings
MSc in Carbon Management from the University of Edinburgh; First Class BA (Hons) in Business Management from Queen Margaret University. Expert group contributor to the UN-Habitat NDC 3.0 methodology; Global Envoy to the International Climate Politics Hub; jury member for WWF’s One Planet City Challenge. Native Polish speaker.
Urszula lives in Sausalito, California, and sails — which is where the practice gets both its name and its worldview: know your position, read the conditions, and give way before the collision, not after.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area · Working with clients wherever policy matters.
Work with Latitude Policy
The first conversation is free.
urszula@latitudepolicy.com37.86° N — Sausalito, California